Nuts, the musical

Brady's grade performed the musical "Nuts" at school this week.  He held the very important part, as the oak tree.  (James also had a very important part, as the creator of the trees!)

GetAlong

Wearing the get along shirt to watch a movie.  The shirt is so silly that they forget whatever the fight was about in the first place.  It's also a new and rearely used tool; I'm sure the novelty will wear off.

Bowling star

It really makes me sad that this video is so dark because this video really shows Rudy's spirit and joy!

UPDATE :  Awesome edits and song dubbing by Popsie makes this video a thousand times better:   http://youtu.be/GuMsHHp2Wlc

New dance - "The dishwasher"

Who knew unloading the dishwasher was so much fun??

Rudy's 3/4 birthday

Today was Rudy's 3/4 birthday.  It's not a big production, but it's a special day for him.  (Similar to Brady's actual birthday being a special day, but not a big production since he prefers to celebrate his birthday in the summer.)

Rudy requested blue birthday pancakes for breakfast. He wanted Drumstick ice cream cones for a special snack at school, since one of his best buddies is allergic to eggs and can't have traditional cupcakes.  His dinner request was homemade mac-n-cheese and bananas; he grudgingly agreed to a tossed salad as well.

It was a beautiful day, so we got to play outside before dinner and baseball practice:

Cat Snuggles

If Rudy is cuddling with a cat and there is a camera nearby, he wants his picture taken...

Snow day #5

This day will go down in history as the first snow day my kids wanted to reject.  Up until now, it was all fun and games but we knew this one would mean adding days to the end of the school year.  Boo.  Warm cookies and milk eased the pain though.

 

Video chat

One of the little girls from Rudy's preschool class (2 years ago!) recently moved out of the area.  Rudy and Mallory didn't see much of each other after preschool, but he still talks about her occasionally.  I got a note a few weeks ago that Mallory was feeling a little homesick and really wanted to talk to Rudy, so we set them up on a video chat.  They had a great 45 minutes talking about their pets and various other topic important to 6-year-olds!

Snow day

There was talk for at least a full week prior to this storm about how intense it was going to be.  It was not nearly as much snow as some of our previous storms, but it was very wet and heavy - enough so that we lost power from about 8 am Wednesday morning until 2 am Thursday morning. 

It was also really windy and just generally unpleasant outside most of Wednesday morning.  Between that and the inability to quickly dry our clothes, we waited until late afternoon to play outside.  We did build a pretty solid "igloo" while we were out though (it had high walls and a covered entry, but was more of an open air igloo...).

There were a lot of trees snapping and cracking under the weight of the wet snow, so we stayed in the yard and didn't venture out for sledding. 

It was starting to get cool in the house by Wednesday evening, so we all camped out in the family room, where the fireplace had been on all day.  The boys sure thought it was a grand adventure!

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The skies were clear the next day, and the snow had a nice thin ice layer on top to make it great for some fast sledding in the morning.  By the afternoon, everything was pretty sloppy.

Our neighborhood roads were well-cleared by Friday, but there were still a lot of dangerous rural roads, many downed trees, and thousands without power.  (We found out later that some friends didn't get power back until Sunday; others in the area were out until Tuesday morning!)  We'd been in OKC Monday; the kids had school on Tuesday, and then we had snow days the rest of the week.  That's the kind of school week I like to see!

Tonight

This is one of the new favorite songs around here this year.  I love the singing, but I also love that they're playing together so peacefully.  After a 4-day weekend (in Oklahoma), 1 day of school, and a 5-day weekend (snow days), I'm generally impressed with their ability to be be buddies most of the time!

OKC - Miscellaneous

Brady demonstrating the incorrect usage of a rollaway bed:

Fun cousins!  Brady and Cade really bonded.  Brady loved having a same-aged cousin like Rudy has with Cooper.  

After dinner (at the restaurant where Nana and Popsie had one of their first dates!):

Just hanging out - at Roger's house, at the pool, and at the hotel...

OKC - National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum

The extended family all traveled to Oklahoma City for Poppy's 90th birthday party.  We were the first in Popsie's family to arrive, so we headed to the Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum, which was a great way to spend a cold and windy afternoon.  We especially liked the exhibit about rodeos and were amazed at some of the crazy events people actually participate in!

This isn't supposed to be a Nittany Lion, but we sure thought it looked like one!

 

He actually looks like a cowboy!

 Admiring some of the 3000+ types of barbed wire on display.  Who knew?

OKC - Bricktown

Much of the extended family left Sunday morning, so we had time for brunch with Poppy Sunday morning and Bricktown with Nana, Popsie, Kelly, Dan, and Cooper that afternoon.  We found a greenhouse with exotic tropical plants and a fun playground for the kids:

Sour faces after eating Uncle Dan's warheads: